Workouts

The Ultimate 7 Day Workout Plan & Routine

Author: Lee Bell

February 3rd 2019

In this 7-day workout plan we lift the lid on the ultimate training schedule for strength and muscle building.

A physique is only as good as the program that creates it.

7 full days of training is enough to build strong foundations. It’s enough to ramp up volume and smash through a training plateau that’s left you lagging for weeks now.

This workout plan kick-starts the journey to a more ripped, jacked physique that’s as aesthetic as it is athletic. During this intense week of training you’ll be hitting the weights room hard as you push your body to its limits with muscle building, strength-building strength training.

And we’ve added some handy hints and tips at the end of this guide to help you understand not just what, but how you’ll build a physique to be proud of too.

Goal:Strength, muscle building
Aimed at:Advanced
Program duration:7-days
Workout duration:45-60 minutes
Equipment needed:Barbell, dumbbell, resistance exercises

Ultimate 7 Day Workout Plan & Routine

Build muscle and strength while completely shredding excess fat. This is the holy grail of complete recomposition programs.

During this 7-day workout plan we’ll guide you through everything you need to completely transform the way you look.

No more belly fat, string bean arms or muffin top hips. It’s all about thick, vascular muscle mass and bar-bending, brute-force strength.

This program is for guys that already know how to lift. If you’ve been strength training regularly for the last year or so and already have a respectable base of fitness, this guide will catapult you into the stratosphere of great physiques.

If you’re a beginner, this workout will beat you up big time. The volume, frequency and intensity will be too much for you to cope with, and chances are you’ll either get injured or push past your limits far too fast.

Check out this 12-week muscle building program for beginners guide for less experienced guys wanting to get jacked.

Intense, short-term strength training accelerates results

The last thing you want right now is to drive your body into the ground. Overtraining is a real issue for athletes, and once you find yourself in its grasp, you can expect a tumble in performance that’ll take weeks to months to recover from.

However…

Short-term ‘functional overreaching’ is used by competitive bodybuilders and athletes all the time to develop strength and muscle mass. When gains plateau, an overreach is used to blast through stagnation and staleness in order to take performance to the next level.

So, what’s an overreach phase?

It simply involves ramping up training intensity and weekly volume to shock the body. You’re going from 0 to 100 and smashing your muscles hard… the result is a big increase in both strength and muscle mass adaptations.

That’s the plan here with this 7-day workout guide. You’ll be training 7-days straight, purposely pushing yourself harder than you EVER have before.

You’ll then take it easy for a week.

Make no mistake – you’ll feel ruined by the end of the 7 days… but when you bounce back, you’ll feel invincible.

As your body recovers, regenerates and rejuvenates itself, the results will be phenomenal. You’ll not even recognize the dominant, strong man looking back at you with assertive eyes and imposing stature.

How does the plan work?

You’ll train each muscle group twice per week for optimal results. Changing up the rep range allows you to stimulate the muscles in a different way each workout and target both strength and mass adaptations.

Forget a once-per-week muscle split program.

That’s old school.

In this 7-day workout plan you’ll be achieving functional overreaching by hitting each muscle multiple times per week… much like a pro weightlifter or powerlifter would.


7-day-workout-plan-for-muscle-building


Day 1

Today is all about developing unbreakable push strength by targeting key pressing patterns

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Barbell bench press53-53-5 minutes
Incline dumbbell press53-53-5 minutes
Barbell military press53-53-5 minutes
Dumbbell Arnold press53-53-5 minutes
Dumbbell decline skullcrushers53-53-5 minutes

Tip of the day: Focus on developing a strong mind-to-muscle connection. This has been shown to result in greater muscle growth.


Day 2

There’s a big emphasis on squats during this 7-day workout plan. Why? Because they guarantee strength and mass.

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Barbell back squat53-53-5 minutes
Romanian deadlift53-53-5 minutes
Front squat53-53-5 minutes
Hack squat53-53-5 minutes

Tip of the day: Leg day is hard work… but sticking with great form in every rep will soon lead to huge quad growth.


Day 3

The third day of this program is all about full-assault pull power!

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Pendlay row68-103-5 minutes
Wide grip pulldown68-103-5 minutes
Dumbbell single arm row68-103-5 minutes
Neutral grip cable row68-103-5 minutes
Rope cable straight arm pulldown68-103-5 minutes

Tip of the day: Experiment with different grips. A full grip is great for forearm development whereas a thumbless grip helps to shift the focus onto the back muscles.

Bodybuilder-7-day-workout-plan


Day 4

Today, you’re back on leg duty to build jacked wheels.

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Dumbbell Bulgarian split squat510-153-5 minutes
Lying leg curl510-153-5 minutes
Leg extension510-153-5 minutes
Dumbbell goblet squat510-153-5 minutes

Tip of the day: During high-rep sets you’ll experience a build-up of muscle-burning metabolic by-products. Push through this as much as you can – real athletes can fight through it.


Day 5

This is your second push workout of the week. Make it count.

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Barbell bench press58-103-5 minutes
Incline dumbbell press58-103-5 minutes
Barbell military press58-103-5 minutes
Dumbbell Arnold press58-103-5 minutes
Dumbbell decline skull-crushers58-103-5 minutes

Tip of the day: If you struggle to use a full range of motion on overhead press, consider using a landmine press as a variation.


Day 6

In this second pull workout of the week you’ll be going as heavy as possible for triples and fives.

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Pendlay row53-53-5 minutes
Wide grip pulldown53-53-5 minutes
Dumbbell single arm row53-53-5 minutes
Neutral grip cable row53-53-5 minutes
Rope cable straight arm pulldown53-53-5 minutes

Tip of the day: Keep a static, solid trunk position during back movements. The emphasis should be on your upper and mid-back; nowhere else.


Day 7

There’s no better way to end this overreaching 7-day day workout plan than with a third lower body workout.

ExerciseSetsRepsRest
Barbell back squat68-103-5 minutes
Romanian deadlift68-103-5 minutes
Front squat68-103-5 minutes
Hack squat68-103-5 minutes

Tip of the day: Use a range of motion that suit your own ability and physical dimensions. Going ass-to-grass for some people is easy; in others it’s impossible.

7-day-workout-tips


Workout & Nutrition Tips

Use the warm up to prime your muscles

There’s more to a warm-up than a 5-minute jog and a couple of stretches.

Not only does a high-quality warm-up reduce the chances of injury, it also helps you lift faster by ‘switching on’ your motor neurons – these are the groups of nerve cells that help a muscle to contract by sending signals to it telling it what to do.

There are two elements to your warm-up that increase what scientists call potentiation.

  1. Dynamic stretching
  2. Heavy ‘feel’ sets

Dynamic stretches such as inchworms, shoulder circles and leg swings help to generate heat in a muscle, making it more pliable and stretchier.

Potentiation acts as a stimulator by increasing rate coding – the number and rate at which motor neurons fire during strength training. A good way to potentiate muscles is to gradually lift heavier weights during the warm up until you’re at your actual weight for the workout – rather than just a couple of light sets.

Choosing the right weights

You’ll be completing a variety of rep ranges over the course of this overreaching 7-day workout plan. But there’s one common theme you need to bear in mind when choosing the right loads to work with.

Due to excessively high volumes, you won’t get away with going to failure on every set – you’ll just burn out. However, go too light or stop each set too early and you won’t improve. The key is to stop one full rep before failure – what’s called a ‘one rep in reserve’ or 1RIR.

Leaving a rep in the tank triggers adaptation without accruing too much carry over fatigue that affects the following lift or the next day’s workout.

Use your rest periods effectively

Lifting high loads is fatiguing.

Without rest periods, the following set will be lighter as you’ve built up too much fatigue. Resting longer between sets helps to build strength and mass as you can continue to lift heavy in subsequent sets. Make sure you don’t rush into each exercise and take time to evaluate your performance, technique and form.

Gone are the days where we thought shorter rest times were better for growth.

Use a full range of motion

Going heavy during each set is what we’re after here. But not if it means sacrificing form.

Technique should always be your priority; not ego.

By reducing your range of motion, you’re only cheating yourself. Only progress the load you’re lifting when you can complete the designated rep range comfortably, with unbreakable form.

Full range of motion has been shown to be far superior than partial range for both strength and muscle building.

Rest and recovery

You’ve probably realized there’s no room for recovery during this 7-day workout plan.

But we strongly advise you take time off afterwards.

It’s important that you deload, taper or just take time away from the gym after this intense overreaching phase. If you do, you’ll optimize the way your body improves. If you don’t, you’ll just end up beating yourself into overtraining.

And there’s no coming back from that.

Nutrition

Eating the right foods during an overreaching week is key.

You need the right amount of fuel to get through the grueling workouts, but you also need a surplus to build new muscle cells.

Shooting for a calorie intake that’s around 20% above maintenance (around 500 kcal for most people) will give you what you need.

We’d also suggest taking in plenty of protein to support muscle cell synthesis and protect against excessive muscle damage due to the high volume of sets you’ll be completing. 1.4-2.0 grams of high-quality protein per kilogram of body weight will do nicely.

Lastly, this isn’t the time to go low carb. You’ll need plenty of stored glycogen to push your body through multiple workouts. Aim for plenty of brown rice, pasta and potatoes to add jet engine fuel to your workouts.

To learn more about nutrition for muscle growth, check out our guide to bodybuilding diet: eating for muscle mass.


The final word

You’ve never experienced anything as challenging as this 7-day workout plan. It’ll smash plateaus and take your physique to a completely new level – even if you’re already advanced.

Get ready to push yourself, work hard and probably feel you like the end will never come… but stick with it and reap godly rewards by day 7.

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